


My Romance (doesn't need a thing but you)

by Spoodlemonkey



Category: X Company (TV)
Genre: Humor, M/M, Misuse of Science by Author, bit of angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-03
Updated: 2015-07-03
Packaged: 2018-04-07 12:25:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,504
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4263195
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Spoodlemonkey/pseuds/Spoodlemonkey
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The look on Neil’s face is almost comical as the French scientist they’re trying to bring in flings a beaker full of clear liquid at him. Tom watches dread rising up in him like a wounded beast, as the clear liquid hits the startled man quickly soaking through his shirt to the vulnerable skin underneath. <br/>Or- the accidental love potion fic no one asked for (but with a twist).</p>
            </blockquote>





	My Romance (doesn't need a thing but you)

**Author's Note:**

> Title taken from the Carmen McRae song (I may have a problem when it comes to these boys and titles...). Alternatively titled Love Potion #9 but that just made me think of Sandra Bullock.

The look on Neil’s face is almost comical as the French scientist they’re trying to bring in flings a beaker full of clear liquid at him. Tom watches dread rising up in him like a wounded beast, as the clear liquid hits the startled man quickly soaking through his shirt to the vulnerable skin underneath. 

He’s already moving forwards, sprinting across the space as Aurora subdues the scientist. Neil is staring down at his shirt in confused horror and Tom slides to a stop in his space, heart trapped in his throat as he rips at the material, popping buttons in his haste to get the liquid off his team mate, off his friend.

“It’s not,” Neil starts to say but Tom finally gets his shirt open, shoves it off his shoulders and is reaching for his waist band to wrench his undershirt up and over his head when strong hands stop him, curl gently around his wrists to still his panicked movements. “Tom.”

Tom’s gaze jerks up to meet Neil’s confused, wry eyes. 

“It doesn’t hurt.” Neil says, squeezing the wrists in his grip carefully. “It just feels like he splashed me with water, mate.”

Tom blinks, tries to process this, his gaze darting back down to Neil’s undershirt. Neil’s soaked, vaguely sheer undershirt. He tears his gaze away before he can stare any longer. 

“Are you boys okay?” Aurora calls over to them, the scientist, Dr. Keribal, gagged and restrained. 

Tom’s heart is thundering away in his chest but he nods, squares his shoulders and clenches his jaw. He takes a careful step away from Neil with a sheepish glance at the shirt now crumpled on the ground. Neil huffs out a relieved laugh and scoops the shirt back up but doesn’t move to put it back on yet. Tom keeps his gaze trained on Aurora. 

“I’ll be fine when he tells us what the hell he was thinking.” Neil jerks his head at their trussed up scientist. He crosses over to the pair and pulls down the makeshift gag.

“Wanna tell me what that was?” He asks with a hint of menace that has the elderly man wincing. His broad frame is threatening as he grabs a handful of lab coat. 

“Do you smell that?” Aurora asks suddenly, head tilted and gaze distant. Neil and Tom exchange a quick look.

“Smell what?” Tom asks, sniffing the air, wondering if she can smell smoke. It’s a little early for their distraction but sometimes plans had to change. He doesn’t smell anything other than the mix of chemicals in the lab and his own sweat. 

Aurora pushes the scientist down into a chair, replaces the gag, and then sniffs the room.

“That.” She says like it explains everything. “It smells like coffee…and old books. Like spring time.”

Tom refrains from pointing out that those smells are very distinct from one another. He can’t pick out any of those scents. He casts a questioning glance at Neil but he just shakes his head—he can’t smell it either then.

“And a feeling,” Aurora murmurs, gaze a million miles away as she slowly shuffles forwards. Her feet lead her away from their prisoner and straight to Neil who is watching with a wary look on his face. She pauses, sniffs the space right in front of him, and the wary look blooms into outright discomfort. 

“It’s you.” Aurora marvels and then promptly drapes herself over Neil with a glazed look on her face that reminds Tom uncomfortably of the starlets in movies who fall for the hero. 

“Um.” Neil says eloquently, and Tom thinks it’s safe to say that Aurora is freaking them both out. 

“You,” Tom rounds on their scientist, tears the gag back out. “What the hell did you do to her?” 

But there’s a strangely distant look on the man’s face as he gazes almost adoringly past Tom at the only other two people in the room. With a sinking feeling Tom follows his gaze to find Neil to be what holds his attention so thoroughly. 

“Mate,” Neil calls over as he manages to gently tug Aurora away from where’s she’s latched onto him. Tom ignores the sharp twisting of his stomach at the sight. “This is really starting to freak me out.”

“It must have been the liquid.” He frowns and crosses over to the pair, his frown deepening when Neil takes a hasty step back. 

“I bloody well don’t want you going all vacant on me too.” Neil defends, hands preoccupied with keeping Aurora at a distance. 

“If it affected our scientist and Aurora it should have gotten me too by now,” he points out. “I was the one closest to you.” 

Neil doesn’t have anything to say to this so Tom crosses the distance between them, steps toe to toe with the other man and inhales deeply. He doesn’t smell coffee, or old books or spring time, in fact all he smells is sweat and grease and Neil and none of that is new to him. Neil is watching him with a strange expression on his face so Tom takes a step back and shakes his head.

“I’m fine. Maybe it just affects women and the elderly?”

Except that theory is proven wrong the moment they step onto the sidewalk. Harry is waiting with the car and they bundle the scientist into the back as a small fire starts up around the corner thanks to Alfred and their resistance connections. Neil slides into the back seat with their scientist and Aurora, and Tom gets into the passenger seat.

“We need to get out of here,” he says, eyes raking up and down the street but so far the coast is clear. For once. Harry doesn’t say anything, but he also doesn’t start the car. A sense of foreboding crawls over him. Harry is twisted around in his seat, a dazed look on his face as he stares back at Neil like he’s the best thing he’s ever seen. Tom resists the urge to bang his head on the dashboard if only because they need to get moving to the safe house. “Damn it.” 

He climbs out of the car, crosses around to the driver’s side and man handles Harry into the passenger seat. He has to adjust for his height, Harry is tiny, but then they’re off. He has to keep a hand on the back of Harry’s shirt to keep him from crawling into the backseat, and tension climbs high in his spine, settling heavy on his shoulders.

Harry starts muttering about the scent of lavender and tea and crisp linen sheets. 

“Steady on.” Neil murmurs, reaches out and brushes a hand across his shoulder and some of the tension shifts, alleviates enough that he can get them to their safe house on the edge of the city. Alfred isn’t back yet; thank whatever higher power is out there, so Tom and Neil manage to get the three dazed people squared away in the sitting room. 

“This is insane.” Tom runs a hand through his short hair, paces back and forth as Neil is forced to stay close to the three lest they get up and start following him around the room.

“I’m pretty sure they’re just drugged.” Neil says though he doesn’t sound sure. 

“Should we message home and let them know what’s going on?”

“And say what?” Neil demands. “That almost half our team is compromised and drugged out of their bloody minds?” 

“Well I’m open to suggestions!” Tom shouts, hands in the air and helpless frustration coursing through him. 

“Well I don’t have any!” Neil yells back, surging to his feet and for a moment it looks like the start of yet another fight; Tom’s heart is pounding in his chest, adrenaline coursing through him, and the sadistic part of himself wakes up at how close Neil has gotten, reminds him that this is the only way he can get close. 

“Um.” 

They both round on Alfred as he stands rooted in the doorway. 

A flush of dread spreads through him because they hadn’t heard him, that could have been anyone, could have been the enemy and they would be dead right now. But the feeling makes way for resignation when Alfred blinks heavily, and then again, like he’s fighting off the sluggish feeling of being drugged.

“Why do you taste like Champaign and cherries?” He asks, looking like he’s fighting a losing battle with staying sober. 

“You need to go wash this stuff off.” Tom tells him, previous anger forgotten and slight panic seeping in. He leads Alfred over to the others. They’d better pray the stuff comes off with some soap and water or they’re out of luck. 

Neil nods with a grimace.

“What about this lot?”

“I’ll watch them.” Tom says. The door to the sitting room locks so he can lock them all in if need be. If it gets worse he has enough rope to go around.

Neil hesitates at the doorway, appearing torn, before shaking his head.

“Be careful,” he says, hand on the doorknob. “If they get violent,”

“I’ll knock them out and tie them up.” Tom promises because its true they don’t know what will happen if their addiction is suddenly removed, but he has a feeling that they won’t be too much trouble, the group of them sprawled on the couch on top of each other.

Neil is gone for a solid twenty minutes. Tom keeps an eye on the old grandfather clock in the corner of the room as the four drugged people go from dazed and happy to moody to downright depressing. Not long before Neil reappears Aurora starts to make faces like she can’t quite make out what she’s doing here, hand coming up to her head like she’s suffering a bad headache. 

“Aurora?” Tom crouches in front of her, voice pitched low. She blinks at him slowly and nods. “Feeling better?” 

She pauses like she’s thinking about it and then lets out a low groan, sinking back into the couch. He has a feeling she’s remembering sniffing Neil. 

“I’ll get you some water.” He promises, now that he’s feeling reassured that things are going back to normal, and climbs to his feet. To be safe he locks the sitting room door behind him and makes his way to the kitchen. 

He runs into Neil at the bottom of the stairs, curls damp from the water and dressed in fresh clothes.

“I threw the old ones out the window in a bag.” He says. “I’ll burn them or bury them later.”

“Back to normal now you think?” Tom asks and Neil shrugs.

“Hoping, mate.” They pause and then Tom, without thinking, leans in and takes a deep breath of Neil. 

Soap and Neil. 

“It didn’t even work on you in the first place.” Neil’s voice is low, rough, and Tom jerks back, fights down the blush. 

“Better safe than sorry.” 

“Why is that anyways?” Neil continues on like he hadn’t spoken. There’s an odd look on his face. 

Tom shrugs and moves away, reluctantly. 

“I’m grabbing some water, the others are coming around.” He ducks into the kitchen and away from Neil’s prying gaze.

Aurora is back to her usual self when they unlock the door, it appears the scientist is as well. Alfred takes the longest to come out of it, but he just sits there, on the couch, pliant and peaceful between Aurora and Harry.

“Wanna tell us what that was?” Neil asks the elderly man and this time the scientist tells all, perhaps from having experienced the effects of the drug first hand.

“It was to seduce targets,” he tells them in fragmented English. “Accesses the part of the brain that deals with attraction and love.”

“So it was a love potion.” Harry says flatly. “And we all fell in love with Neil.”

“I don’t think that was it,” Aurora says thoughtfully. “It wasn’t Neil I was thinking of, it was the smells, they made me feel safe, loved.” 

She clears her throat and Tom has a feeling he knows who she was thinking of.

“That’s it, isn’t it?” She asks their captive. “It played on our memories of special scents. Things we connect to feelings of love.”

The scientist shrugs, and looks away, apparently done talking for the moment.

“The extraction team will pick him up at dawn.” Harry says later on while they’re seated in the tiny kitchen. “And then we’re off to the border.”

“We should try and get some rest,” Aurora says, authority clear in her tone. “I’ll take first watch.”

“I’ll stay up with you.” Alfred adds; they share a look worth a thousand words, before she nods finally. 

It’s been a hell of a day and Tom’s body feels like it weighs a ton as he climbs the stairs to the second floor and the bedrooms. It’s a four bedroom house so no one has to double up this time, unless they feel like it, so it’s a bit of a surprise as he strips off his outer layers to find Neil watching from the doorway.

“What?” He asks, tired and irritable and nervous for some unknown reason as Neil watches him silently.

“It didn’t affect you.” 

Tom shrugs it off, plays casual and contemplates whether he feels the need to sleep in his boots tonight. He chooses to keep them on for a quick escape if need be.

“You sniffed me, twice.” Neil continues, stepping into the room and shutting the door behind him. By now the others know to either steer clear of their fights or be sucked in to their chaos so Tom doesn’t figure anyone will be coming to the rescue. 

“You didn’t smell any different.”

“I think I know why.” Neil says and Tom’s stomach drops. He stands tall though, clenches his jaw, and doesn’t say anything. “Whatever you smelt—it couldn’t have changed for you.”

They’re standing toe to toe, and the height difference feels like nothing with the heat sparking in Neil’s eyes, with his thick chest, broad shoulders, with all his quiet strength.   
“Tell me I’m wrong.” Neil demands. Tom can’t say anything though. 

He braces himself for the punch he expects, for Neil to laugh at the queer, but instead he just reaches out, brushes one strong hand along his jaw, to the back of his head and uses the grip to pull him closer.

“Tell me I’m wrong.” He says again, breathes it against Tom’s lips.

“You’re not.” Tom manages voice hoarse. 

Neil’s eyes are dark, flashing like a storm, and the heat there sends a bolt through him. Tom is the one to cross the distance though, to seal their lips together and surrender to the kiss. 

“Good.” Neil mumbles against his lips, one hand holding him close, the other sliding up under his shirt to paw at warm skin. “And uh, same.” 

Tom nods, laughs quietly, and pulls him back in.


End file.
